A technology company is implementing a “work without Email” policy

Original author: Susanna Kim
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No more emails

Atos technology employees are not allowed to send e-mails in accordance with new internal rules called “No Email”.

The president of this French company Thierry Breton said that only 10% of the 200 daily messages are useful, and 18% are generally spam. Therefore, he hopes that the company will be able to get rid of internal email correspondence in the next 18 months, forcing its 74,000 employees to use instant messaging systems and facebook-like interfaces more actively.

A spokeswoman for Caroline Crouch explained to ABC News that this initiative focuses primarily on internal correspondence and does not affect email interactions with customers and partners. Over the past 6 months, Atos has successfully reduced the number of internal communications by 20%. Employees positively took this initiative and actively use alternative means of communication.

Thierry Breton, a former French finance minister in 2005-2007, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he had not sent a single email since taking over as Atos CEO in November 2008.

“We are generating a wealth of information that not only“ pollutes ”our working hours, but already invades personal ones,” he said, announcing new internal rules in February. “We will try to change this trend in the same way as companies reduce negative environmental impact in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. ”

According to information from the Atos corporate website, last year revenue amounted to 8.5 billion EUR (about $ 11.5 billion), the company is represented in 42 countries.

According to a company representative, by 2013, half of the work with digital content will be editing and updating existing information. The average management will spend up to 25% of its time searching for existing information.

Atos is considering new tools that will replace email, including collaboration tools and social media tools. Including the Atos Wiki, which allows all employees to communicate, modifying and distributing online content and Office Communicator - a corporate tool for online communication with the ability to video conferencing, file sharing and common work with applications.

From the translator.
A good example of a way of looking at things in large companies with developed bureaucracy. They tried to do something similar . There are several arguments for and against this approach in today's realities.
  1. “If you want to be done, call me.” If you don’t want to, write ... "©
  2. You can work with Email at your convenience, but you have to reply to instant messages right away
  3. E-mail is easy to present to auditors and superiors as evidence of their actions.
  4. There is information about the history of correspondence
  5. It is closer in ideology to paper work, and therefore more familiar


For IT workers, this reasoning may seem nonsense; we begin to recall KOs and common sense. But still - let's try to delve into the problems of people far from IT, especially management, in large corporations. Today. On Friday.

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